


Remnants

by celeste9



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Ghosts, Storytelling, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 11:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Rey finds ghosts on Scarif.





	Remnants

**Author's Note:**

> Very belated fic for the Star Wars Advent Calendar Day 6, ghost stories. I'm not sure if canon ever confirmed what was left of Scarif after the Death Star, so I made this all up.

_There’s a story people tell,_ Poe told Rey and Finn on the long journey to Scarif, or to what was left of it.

_Actually,_ he said, _there are many stories. The rebels who saved the rebellion, many at the cost of their own lives. The rebels who saved the galaxy, even, some say. The rebels who were the reason Luke Skywalker could take that shot and blow up the Death Star._

Poe told them, _There are stories about the defector who wanted to do the right thing. The man who believed and trusted in the Force but wasn’t a Jedi, and his partner who had lost faith but believed in him. The soldier-spy who lived and breathed and died for the Rebellion and the droid who went everywhere with him. The woman who believed in nothing but survival until she fought with everything she had to save us all, even when it seemed like no one would stand with her._

_Rogue One,_ he said, with reverence. _They died so we could live._

Rey soaked up every word.

-

Rey saw Scarif in her dreams.

That was why they were going. There wasn’t much left of the planet, not after what the Empire did to it, but Rey dreamed of it for weeks and she could feel it calling her, somehow. That felt stupid but the general said it was best not to ignore those sorts of feelings. She said it was the Force leading her, and Rey should listen.

She knew she would find her crystal, somewhere on Scarif.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she would do with it once she found it but she supposed she would figure it out. She had built her own speeder from spare parts; how difficult could a lightsaber be?

In her dreams, Scarif had been mostly just an impression, a sense of the crystal. In reality, it was much different.

Poe told them that Scarif had been a beautiful jungle world, sun and trees and oceans. Now it was a broken husk on which nothing could grow and no one could live. The air was dim and dusty and they wore goggles over their eyes and wrapped their faces to protect themselves.

It felt wrong to smile, to chat, to laugh. It was a dead planet, and so many had died here. Rey, Finn, and Poe were all subdued as they looked around.

It should have felt empty. On base, Rey was constantly bombarded by Force signatures, by noise in her head. Here, it should have been so different. It should have felt empty, the inhabitants long dead.

It didn’t. It felt different, certainly, but there was still… something, and Rey couldn’t quite mark it.

Something was here on this dead planet.

-

They ate rations onboard the _Millennium Falcon_ , later, in the evening. There may as well have been no night or day on Scarif, so they kept their chronos synced to the day cycle on base.

“How come no one knew about this?” Finn asked. “Everyone says it was Alderaan that did it. But this is…”

“Alderaan was a peaceful planet and the Empire destroyed it,” Poe said. “Scarif was an Imperial outpost. Soldiers died here, not civilians. Hundreds rather than millions. Besides, who do you think controlled the news? The rest of the galaxy believed what the Emperor wanted them to believe.” He shrugged. “Until they didn’t.”

Rey only half-listened to their conversation, her eyes on the corridor leading to the hatch at the back of the ship. The air felt heavy, oppressive, and she couldn’t understand why. The dead were obliterated; there was nothing left. She couldn’t feel a presence that was no longer there.

At least, that was what Rey had thought. She had never really had a teacher, and this place…

Perhaps something lingered, after death.

-

They slept onboard as well, and Rey awoke on her own to get an early start. She walked towards the back of the ship, reaching for the controls to open the door, but that heaviness was weighing on her and saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head, her gaze fell on a slender dark-haired man, crouching on the floor of the ship.

“What--” she started to say, when she heard a clatter and the man looked up. There was a bright swell of heat and Rey cried out, instinctively ducking and covering her face before she realized that truly, there was nothing there.

A sound of scurrying feet made her look up and watch Finn come skidding in, his blaster in hand, followed seconds after by Poe, similarly armed. They were both rumpled and barely dressed, in t-shirts and underwear, Poe’s hair a curly mess.

“Rey?” Finn said. “You okay?”

Rey straightened, glancing over to the clearly empty corner and feeling ridiculous. “Thought I saw something,” she mumbled.

“We thought you were being attacked.” Finn stepped closer, touching her shoulder. “Are you sure you’re okay? It isn’t like you to be jumpy.”

She made herself smile a little to reassure him. “Must be this place.”

“It’s got us all a little on edge,” Poe chimed in. “I’ll be glad to be back on base with Beebee-Ate, that’s for sure.”

“Yeah,” Rey agreed. “That’s why I wanted to get an early start. Look around.”

Finn nodded. “If you wait a minute, we can come with?”

“That’s okay. I’ll be fine. We can meet up later?”

“Sure. You’ve got your commlink?”

Rey flourished it, her small smile more genuine. “I’ll call if I need you.”

The outside air was as thick and dirty as it had been the day before, and Rey found herself adjusting the wrap covering her face just to be certain she wouldn’t breathe in any more of this dust than she had to. She walked along what may once have been a line of trees, listening more with her mind than her senses, reaching out with the Force.

She extended her arms by her sides and imagined she could feel the brush of leaves trailing over her palms, imagined the humid heat this planet must have known. She could almost hear the zipping of blaster fire, the crash of a falling tree, someone screaming, a ship exploding.

There had been a battle here, and Rey could feel the trace of it.

She could feel the hope, and the determination, and the fear, and the resignation, all of it. It was dimmer, maybe, than when she was on base, when others’ emotions bled into her head, but somehow yet more affecting. These traces had been so powerful than not even death could wipe them from the land.

Rey walked farther and then circled back around to the _Falcon._ As she approached it she saw a shape, not transparent but not quite solid, like an echo. The dark-haired man from before. He didn’t belong but Rey wasn’t afraid; he was only looking for something.

He faced her and said, “Did it work? Did the signal get through?”

“Yes,” Rey said. “Yes. It went through.”

The man seemed to sag with relief. “I spent my life making the wrong choices. I wanted to make the right one for once.”

“Rey?”

She turned, looking at Finn, calling her, and then glanced back. The man had vanished.

-

Rey didn’t tell Finn or Poe about what she was seeing and feeling. It felt wrong, somehow, like it was something private, for only her, and she didn’t know how to explain anyway. This planet was filled with death but with life, also; those who had come to their end here had been so, so alive and that was what Rey felt.

Rey couldn’t sleep, and wandered into the communal area of the freighter. It seemed maybe she wasn’t the only one, as she found Poe awake at the dejarik table. He gave her half a wave and she sat across from him.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“Too…” Rey shrugged.

Poe inclined his head as though he understood, though Rey felt certain he couldn’t. He lacked her sensitivity to the Force; to him, this was a dead planet and the stories were only in his head.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she found herself asking, then gnawed her lip, wishing she hadn’t said it.

“Why? Seen one?”

He was joking. Rey flushed.

Poe looked more carefully. “Rey?”

She looked away. “I… feel things.”

He nudged her foot beneath the table. “Want to talk about it?”

Rey shook her head. She hadn’t changed her mind; this was hers, and how could she possibly explain? That had been Bodhi Rook, the dark-haired man, she was certain of it. Bodhi Rook, the pilot, the Imperial defector. _For Galen,_ she heard in her head, and hoped he had found peace, that this shade she felt was truly only an echo, a lingering remnant, that his soul had moved on.

It hurt to think that the heroes who had died here were stuck.

“If it’s… hard for you, to be here,” Poe offered hesitantly, “it won’t be much longer. You’ll find what we came for, and then we’ll go home.”

“Yes,” Rey said, and squeezed his hand where it rested on the table. “We’ll go home.”

She wasn’t sure, though, that she could so easily forget what she had seen here.

_I looked up,_ a woman’s voice echoed, and Rey held more tightly onto Poe’s hand.

-

The beach had been beautiful once; Rey could almost see it in her mind. The white sands, the vibrant green from the encroaching jungle, the rolling waves in the distance. Now the sands were ash and the waters dark and murky; the trees no longer grew.

Two figures embraced on the shore, waiting for the end.

“Weren’t you afraid?” Rey asked before she could stop herself, the words bursting forth, muffled through the scarf around her face.

They only looked at each other, then at her, faintly smiling, and they didn’t answer but Rey could feel their reply all the same.

Afraid? Of what? They had succeeded, and that was what mattered. When the light engulfed them, there was only peace.

Rey wondered if she would ever have that sort of strength, the willingness to do whatever was necessary, no matter what it cost, and then be able to let go.

She walked and felt the lost lives around her, the flickering shadows, Rebels and Imperials both, as death didn’t discriminate. She listened, letting the Force lead her, trusting that she would find what she had come for.

First she found Finn, who asked her, “Want some company? I could help you search?”

“I think I need to find it myself,” Rey said, touching Finn’s hand in apology. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, of course.”

“Thank you for coming with me.” Rey was only still growing used to the sensation of not doing everything alone; she liked it.

“Couldn’t have stopped us if you’d tried.”

Rey smiled at him and moved on, deeper into what would have been swathes of overgrown jungle, had the Empire not used this planet as a testing ground for their weapon.

_I’m hit,_ she heard inside her head. _I need cover! Pull up! Copy, Blue Leader. Fire on my command._ A chorus of voices and all that they felt, ringing in her thoughts.

Carefully, she pulled back. Focus. Let the Force guide her. The crystal, as she saw in her dreams.

Though she had had an idea that crystals were only found in caves, she somehow knew that wouldn’t be where she found hers. Buried in the ash, in a long dead stump, perhaps. Grown, or left, or misplaced, or however it came to be here, Rey didn’t much care. She only knew that it was meant to be hers, and that she would find it.

_I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me._

“I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me,” Rey repeated, feeling the words as though they came from the depths of her soul. “I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

A man with eyes that didn’t see and yet saw her better than anyone ever had smiled at her, and Rey said the words with him. “I’m one with the Force and the Force is with me.”

His partner stood just before her, long hair shaggy around his face. “Little sister,” he said, and moved away, and Rey knew she was in the right place.

She walked forward, the words of the prayer reverberating within her, and she listened listened listened, letting everything else, all the echoes, all the traces, all the ghosts fall away.

In the ashes of this dead and yet so alive planet, Rey found her crystal.

-

There was no reason to linger after that. Rey stood on the shores alone, eyes closed, and felt the ghosts around her. _Rest,_ she found herself thinking. _I hope you are at rest. You did what you were meant to._

_You deserve rest._

In her thoughts, she felt their jumbled presence. _Keep it tight. For Jedha! You will always find me. Stardust. Goodbye. Hang on. Come with me! Ion torpedoes away. Who are you?_

_This is Rogue One._

“May the Force be with you, Rogue One,” Rey said, gripping her crystal in her palm, and thought she would carry them with her always.

**_End_ **


End file.
